Friday the 12th horror at the MN Legislature

Pro-pedophile, anti-First Amendment provisions advance at the state legislature, appropriately, in the dark of night.

You may recall that I discussed these two provisions in this post. The pedophilia issue appeared to have been solved with a timely amendment offered by state Rep. Harry Niska (R-Ramsey) that was adopted by a unanimous vote of the Minnesota House, 126-0.

The problem occurs in the 500+ page “public safety omnibus bill” (SF 2909) on page 438, lines 20 and 21.

“Sexual orientation” does not include a physical or sexual attachment to children by an adult

The strikethrough indicates that the above language is being removed from existing statute (section 363A.03, subdivision 44). The context of this removed language is that current state law protects everyone from discrimination based on their sexual orientation, whatever that may be for a given person. Current law makes clear that protected sexual orientations do not include those held by pedophiles.

Here is the current definition of protected sexual orientations,

“Sexual orientation” means having or being perceived as having an emotional, physical, or sexual attachment to another person without regard to the sex of that person or having or being perceived as having an orientation for such attachment, or having or being perceived as having a self-image or identity not traditionally associated with one’s biological maleness or femaleness. “Sexual orientation” does not include a physical or sexual attachment to children by an adult.

By removing the last sentence, there is no longer any lower limit to the age of the object of a person’s orientation. The Niska amendment made clear elsewhere in statute that pedophilia is not a protected class. That amendment was removed.

The final language now holds that all sexual orientations are protected under state law, whatever they may be.

Rep. Niska issued a statement explaining what happened yesterday,

Without Republicans in the room, Democrats stripped from the bill language Niska successfully amended–without opposition–to House File 2890 [a predecessor bill]. He said his amendment eliminated concerns language in the original bill could be interpreted as protecting pedophiles under the Human Rights Act, simply indicating “The physical or sexual attachment to children by an adult is not a protected class under this chapter.”

The all-Democrat conference committee stripped the Niska amendment without discussion, he said. Without his amendment, Niska said some may interpret the HRA to deem pedophilia as a protected class in Minnesota, which prevents them from being denied employment, housing, education and more.

This dead of night change (2:30 am, Friday morning) is not getting any publicity because the larger bill includes the Democrats’ gun-grabbing measures.

This 29-paragraph account in the Minneapolis Star Tribune has not a single word about the pro-pedophile change.

Niska also points out that the bill includes $645,000 in new funding (line 5.28) for the Department of Human Rights to report on “civil rights trends.”

The report (page 49, line 23) appears to be a warmed-over version of the hate speech registry that the Democrats were pushing earlier. The new language orders the Department to,

analyze civil rights trends pursuant to this chapter, including information compiled
from community organizations that work directly with historically marginalized communities, and prepare a report each biennium that recommends policy and system changes to reduce and prevent further civil rights incidents across Minnesota. 

The words “trends,” “information” and “incidents” are not defined. So the Department is free to track whomever they want for whatever purpose they desire.

And we still have another week to go.